


Down All Your Darkest Roads

by losingmymindtonight



Series: Close Your Eyes, Shut Your Mouth [5]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awesome Pepper Potts, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I mean I absolutely butcher her POV in this but I love her, Light Angst, Mentions of kidnapping, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, POV Pepper Potts, Parent Pepper Potts, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Sleepy Cuddles, Sleepy Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Lives, seriously guys I love her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 21:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20645708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/losingmymindtonight/pseuds/losingmymindtonight
Summary: “Is he dead?”She closed her eyes, bit her lip. This... This wasn’t normal. There was no excuse for this. She’d been trailing behind Tony through the reality of superheroes for over a decade, had seen the bitter and the ugly sides of this life, and yet she’d never been prepared to reconcile herself with a world where a child had to ask that question.“No, honey,” she whispered, delicate, “we don’t think so.”--Tony disappears. Pepper deals with the space in-between.





	Down All Your Darkest Roads

**Author's Note:**

> This all started just because I wanted to examine how Pepper and Peter's relationship might grown after Endgame. I did explore some of that, but it ended up spiraling out of control.  
As usual, I pretend Tony survived Endgame because I am incapable of accepting the MCU without him. I also pretend that Steve didn't yeet off with Peggy. I never thought I'd be one of those people who lived in denial, but here I am.
> 
> WARNINGS: background kidnapping (it's super non-graphic, but stay safe), ruminations on the dangers of heroism, brief discussions of death (also very non-graphic)

It wasn’t like Tony hadn’t vanished before.

At least, that’s what she kept telling herself. This had happened before, it had happened _ a lot _ , and everything was going to be _ fine _.

See, Pepper Potts had been dating Tony Stark for many, many years. She’d become adept at lying to herself.

Lying to herself was how she’d kept her steely calm when Rhodey first called her, apologies and promises rolling off his tongue. It was how she’d welcomed the chaos of the Avengers into her home (_ their _ home) with a smile and a thanks. It was how she’d survived the bone-deep knowledge that any of these disappearances could be permanent, that her husband could already be dead.

She lied to herself. She deferred it. She pretended it wasn’t real.

Tony worried constantly about Peter’s ability to do the same, called it his _ invincibility complex, _ the kind of thing any teenage boy was bound to have, yet compounded and worsened by the fact that this specific teenage boy had already died and been resurrected once. Except in that context, she knew that Tony worried about Peter’s ability to rationalize away _ his own _ mortality. What did it say about Pepper that she was constantly pushing away Tony’s?

_ A secondhand invincibly complex, _ that’s what she had. She was certain of her own impermanence. She just... wasn’t so sure of Tony’s.

She couldn’t be. If she admitted just how painfully human and fragile he truly was, underneath the suit and the bravado that had carried him through over a decade of superheroism... well, she just wasn’t sure if there was any sanity in that reality.

So she didn’t break, didn’t let herself process today as any different from another. She hugged Rhodey when he knocked on her door, asked Steve if he needed anything as he and the rest of the team made a beeline for the lab Tony had built in their garage. He was polite as always, of course, just inclined his head and told her that he didn’t need anything, thank you, and that she should just focus on herself and the kids.

_ The kids. _Oh, god. She had to tell the kids.

Of all the things that were threatening to sink her, _ that _was the realization that nearly did it.

The kids. Tony’s kids. How was she supposed to look them in the eyes and explain this to them? She couldn’t even explain it to herself.

Happy was the last person through the door, veins in his forehead popping out, shoulders set like steel. She grabbed his arm, squeezing it hard enough to catch his attention.

“Happy, I need you to get Peter.”

He nodded, stress melting into determination. He’d always done better with a task: something to focus on, to give him a sense of control. So had she.

“Of course. I’ll go now.”

She glanced at the clock. _ 1:23. _ If Happy went now, he’d been interrupting Peter in the middle of school. That would be wrong, and definitely not something Tony would want. He was always gushing about the kid’s grades, about how smart he was. _ School is important, _ he’d tell Peter, usually after the teenager complained about his homework getting in the way of Spider-Man, _ you’re a brilliant kid, and you’re not allowed to throw that away for the hero business. I forbid it. _

Tony would be furious if he missed out on school.

“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “Just pick him up at the usual time. It’s not like he’ll be much use here. Let him... let him have as normal a day as possible.”

It might not be normal ever again, and she knew that. This may be the last normal day of that child’s life, if Tony didn’t come home, and she loathed the thought of stealing away that time. She wouldn’t do it. She _ couldn’t _do it. Tony would never forgive her if she did.

“Alright,” Happy murmured. He understood. Of course he did. Besides Rhodey, they’d known Tony the longest out of everyone else alive. “Hey, maybe he’ll be back before the kid’s school lets out, and we’ll never even have to tell him.”

She smiled, forced. “Since when has Tony ever made anything that easy?”

“Since his kids were involved.”

And... that was true. Tony would do just about anything to protect Peter and Morgan. It was one of the many, many things that she loved so all-consumingly about him.

If there was anything that would make her husband claw his way out of whatever mess he’d gotten himself into this time, it was his children.

She just had to hope that it was enough.

\--

She didn’t tell Morgan.

It was a cowardice on her part, she supposed. She knew she’d have to explain it eventually, but she also knew that she’d have to tell Peter too, when he got there, and she couldn’t bear the thought of going through it twice. Instead, she just put off all of her daughter’s questions (she wasn’t used to Tony being gone, because Pepper was the one with a full-time job, so Tony was never really away, was _ always _there), and set them up on the couch. She put on Morgan’s favorite cartoon, and they waited for the axe to drop.

Or, rather, Pepper waited to drop the axe herself.

\--

Peter came through the door in a whirlwind, bright and loud and so much like Tony that it hit like nostalgia.

“Mister Stark!” He shouted, eyes darting to the chair that Tony always sat in, _ always _, when he knew that Peter was coming to visit. It faced the door, but let him peek out the window to keep an eye on the driveway, perpetually on the lookout for Happy’s black Audi.

The position let him be the very first person Peter saw when he came bounding in. Now, though, it just made his absence even more obvious.

Peter’s face fell from eagerness to confusion to concern in the span of a few seconds, and Pepper tried to ignore how a part of her whispered that nothing would ever be the same.

“Where’s Mister Stark?”

She plastered on a comforting expression, patting the free cushion next to her. “Come here, honey.”

Peter obeyed, but he moved slowly. Unsure, on edge. When he sat, he did so timidly, like the couch might swallow him up if he pressed too much of his weight down all at one.

“Where’s Mister Stark?” He asked again, wide-eyed and young.

_ A business trip, _ she wanted to say, _ he got called up to be a keynote speaker last minute, but don’t worry, he’ll be back soon. _

She glanced between Morgan and Peter. “We don’t know where Dad is right now.”

Morgan’s face scrunched up, clearly unsure exactly what reaction she was meant to have to that news, while Peter’s went hard. He wasn’t stupid, nor was he naive to the dangers that surrounded people like Tony (people like_ Spider-Man _) everyday. He understood. He knew how this could end just as well as Pepper did.

“Did he get lost?” Morgan questioned, voice small, eyes darting between her and Peter, trying to gauge what she ought to be feeling.

Pepper forced herself to relax. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Peter struggling to do the same. “We don’t know yet, honey. Maybe.”

Morgan blinked, expression worried. “Is someone looking for him?”

“Mhm. That’s why Uncle Rhodey and Dad’s friends are here. They’re all looking for him right now.”

“I should go help, then,” Peter said abruptly, wringing his hands together. “I... I should help.”

She shook her head. “No, sweetheart. You’re going to stay here with us, alright?”

Frustration flashed across Peter’s face, bright and hot. She knew it would die quickly, it always did with him, but it was volatile while it was there. “_ Why? _”

“Because this isn’t a mission,” she murmured, trying her best to be gentle, understanding. “This isn’t something you can distance yourself from. You’re not here as Spider-Man.”

For the briefest moment, Peter’s face crumbled. He looked even younger than Morgan, like that. Small and breakable.

“If I can’t help,” he said, dejected, confused, “then why am I even here?”

“Cause Daddy’s gonna wanna see us when he finds a map,” Morgan answered, either ignoring or oblivious to the high tempers. “You and me and Mommy.” She frowned. “It’s not nice being lost, so he’s gonna be sad when he comes home so we’ve all gotta be here to make him happy again.”

She swallowed down the lump Morgan’s speech had lodged in her throat, caught Peter’s eyes. “She’s right, Peter. I didn’t bring you here for Steve.” _ I brought you here for Tony, _she thought, then shook it away before the pain could overwhelm her. “He’ll… He’ll want to see you.”

“But I’m supposed to help,” he whispered, picking at a hole in his jeans. “I’m… I supposed to do this kinda stuff.”

“Peter,” he cajoled, shaking her head, “you don’t have to be Spider-Man all the time. Nobody could ever expect that of you. And right now, there’s not a single person in this house that thinks that you’re supposed to be anything other than Peter Parker. Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” the kid muttered, and she wished he sounded like he believed it. “Yeah, okay.”

“So,” she said, forcing optimism into her voice, “we’ll just sit here, and we’ll wait for Dad to come home. How does that sound?”

She got an enthusiastic _ yes! _ from Morgan, and a not-quite-so-enthusiastic nod from Peter.

She closed her eyes, just briefly, and thought of Tony. Thought of the message he’d left her, back during the Mandarin scare. How she’d never wanted to kiss him and kill him so much at the same time when she’d watched it.

_ Just do that again. Just do the impossible again, and everything will be alright. _

\--

They sat on the couch until the sun fell behind the mountains, waiting for something that might never happen.

\--

Morgan was long asleep when Peter’s voice cut the quiet.

_ Tony can’t stand the silence, either, _ she thought, heart in her throat, _ he can’t bear the crush of empty space. _

“Is he dead?”

She closed her eyes, bit her lip. This... This wasn’t normal. There was no excuse for this. She’d been trailing behind Tony through the reality of superheroes for over a decade, had seen the bitter and the ugly sides of this life, and yet she’d never been prepared to reconcile herself with a world where a child had to ask that question.

“No, honey,” she whispered, delicate, “we don’t think so.”

“But he could be.”

The words settled like a burden. Tony had always told her that she came more naturally to nurturing than him, but she knew that it wasn’t true. 

She was a CEO. He was a father. He’d always been built for that, had always been meant for that role. And while she certainly didn’t consider herself a _ bad _mother, Tony was simply… exceptional. He always knew what to say, how to say it. She hadn’t been gifted with that kind of foresight.

“Of... Of course he could be,” she said, hoping that the truth was the right path. “You know how these things work.”

Peter had been stiff against her side ever since she’d pulled him in, all those hours ago, but now he turned his head into his shoulder, weight slumping against her ribs.

“What do I do if he’s dead?”

“Shh,” was all she could say, all she could think to offer him: empty comfort. “We aren’t going to worry about that right now.”

“It’s all I _ can _worry about.”

Peter may be a child, but he wasn’t a baby, and he was clever. He was a superhero himself. He understood the toll this life could take, even if he was only beginning to grapple with those truths. There was an edge to the mantle, lurking behind the heroism and the fame and the endless adoration.

You walked the life of a superhero through an endless graveyard, pointing at vacant plots and wondering which one would belong to you, which one would belong to someone you loved.

“I know,” she said, because she did. She _ did _know. She knew better than almost anybody else on Earth. In all honesty, she probably knew even better than Peter. “Believe me, sweetheart, I know.”

\--

By some miracle, Peter fell asleep around 11:00 pm.

Pepper, of course, didn’t join him. Didn’t even have a hope of it. All she could do was sit there, only half-comforted by the warmth of her husband’s two worlds pressed under both her arms, consumed by the over-exhausted fear that she’d be a widow by sunrise.

When the stairs creaked at 2:13 am, she prepared for the worst. Told herself that she’d always known this could be coming. They’d made contingencies, plans. She knew where his will was, and she knew what he’d want her to do. It was all set up.

Steve knelt down in front of her. In any other context, it would’ve felt demeaning, but she was too absorbed in trepidation to care.

“They found him,” he whispered, eyes flickering over the sleeping kids, voice dipping accordingly. “He got himself out, called from a payphone in Connecticut. He’s a little scratched up, but fine. Rhodey’s gone to pick him up now. They’ll be back in an hour or so.”

She fought back a hysterical laugh. _ Of course _ he got himself out. _ Of course _ he did.

How could she have _ ever _forgotten who she married?

“Oh, thank god.”

Steve smiled, gestured at Morgan, then Peter. “You wanna wake them?”

She shook her head, dread and cobwebs clearing from her chest. It was going to be alright, now. Everything was going to be _ fine _.

“No, no. I’ll let him do it.” She let her own lips tug up, dropped her head back against the cushion behind her. “He’ll like that.”

“I’m sure he will.”

He would. He _ would _like it. And he’d get to like a million other things, too, because he was alive.

He was _ alive _.

She hugged Morgan and Peter closer, and finally waited for something that _ would _happen.

\--

Tony walked through the door like it was just another day. Like he’d just gone out to get groceries.

She tried to get up as soon as she saw him, wanted to meet him on level footing, _ I hate job hunting _ on her tongue, but he motioned frantically for her to stay still, eyes sparkling like he was staring into a painting he loved.

“I oughta get this framed,” he murmured, stealing the thought right out of her mind, just like he always did. “Put it up in my office. Remind me what I’m doing it all for.”

She rolled her eyes as he knelt by her knees, a few inches closer than the spot Steve had held earlier. “And what is it that you’d need fortifying to face?”

“Getting up in the morning, probably,” he grinned, setting one hand on Morgan’s head, the other on Peter’s hip. “Kids couldn’t even wait up for their old man, huh?”

“To be fair,” she shot back, fighting down a smile of her own, “their old man decided to come home at 3:00 in the morning.”

He winced. His lip was split, a bruise forming just underneath his left eye. “Fair point. Sorry about that, by the way. Got held up at work.”

“You work from home.”

“Do I?” He winked. “Well, it was a house call, you could say.”

“_ Tony _ ,” she admonished, but there was no heart behind it. How could there be? He was here and he was smiling and he was _ alive _. That was all she’d ever needed him to be.

“Sorry, sorry.” He murmured, sitting up on his knees and pressing a quick kiss to her cheek, her nose, her lips. “Sensitive topic. Sorry.”

When he pulled away, he glanced over Morgan, then Peter.

“They alright?”

“They’re okay,” she said, gaze following his. “I don’t think Morgan understood, but Peter did. He was... worried.” 

“I’m impressed that you got him to stay still long enough to fall asleep,” he remarked, eyes squinting as he studied Peter’s face, as if he was looking for the story in the details. “I thought he’d be running himself into the ground with the rest of them.”

“He tried.”

Tony huffed out a gentle laugh. “I’m sure he did.” He winked. “Well done stopping him. You’re a natural.”

She rolled her eyes. She’d been with Tony long enough to know he thought that just about anything she touched turned to gold. The compliment wasn’t a real one, although she was sure that he believed it.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be glad to have his real parent back,” she said. “Speaking of which, I let them sleep. I thought you’d want to wake them.”

“Ah, you know me so well.” 

He reached out and scooped Morgan off the couch. She didn’t stir, which Pepper had expected. Once she was out, she was _ out _. They had a running joke that she could sleep through the apocalypse.

Tony stood there for a few seconds, just silently holding her, rocking ever-so-slightly back and forth. After a while, Pepper leaned forward as much as she could, considering that Peter’s dead-weight was still pinning her down, and rubbed his elbow.

“Feel better?” She asked, and he smiled back at her, bright and in love.

“Always works.” He took a few steps towards the stairs, hiking Morgan higher up against his chest. “I’m gonna tuck her in, and then I’ll be right back to rescue you from the teenager.”

She just smiled, brushed some of Peter’s hair away from his face. “Don’t hurry.”

“Never do.”

He didn’t, either. It was nearly 20 minutes before he came back, but that didn’t bother her. As long as he was alive, she was pretty sure he’d earned himself a grace period of getting away with pretty much _ anything _.

He whispered an apology for taking so long when he got close, settling down on Peter’s other side and reaching out for him: offering a transfer, she supposed. _ You’ve been on duty all day. Here, I’ve got it now. _

Tony’s knuckles were still slightly bloodstained, a shallow cut running along his right thumb, and Pepper couldn’t help but study it, study the way his fingers moved. She’d always been fascinated by his hands. They’d always been at their most precise, their most detailed, when he was working in the lab. For years, she thought she’d seen them do everything, but then Peter had come along, and Morgan had been born, and she’d decided that while she may have seen Tony’s hands do thousands of tasks, in a thousand different ways, she’d never seen them at their best.

Their best was holding Morgan, tucking Peter’s hair behind his ear, brushing tears or dirt or melted popsicle off their cheeks. They were at their best _ now _: when Tony slid his palm behind Peter’s head, gently tilted him away from Pepper’s shoulder and onto his own. 

It had never been that she’d thought Tony’s hands were incapable of this kind of gentleness, the kind that oozed warmth and love. In fact, it was the opposite. She’d always known he’d been built for soft edges. She’d just lived year after year terrified that _ he _ would never realize that he was capable of kindness.

“You should wake him up,” she said. “He’ll just be worried if you don’t.”

“On it.” 

Tony turned his attention to Peter, tone dropping to the pitch that he only ever used with him. Morgan had one, too, and so did she. Morgan’s was higher, somewhere on the edge of baby-talk without being patronizing, and hers had a sharper edge to it, quick and easy-going all at once. It was the same cadence that Tony used with her ever since she’d been just his assistant, all those years ago.

Peter’s was lower, though, chest-deep and murmur-soft. The corner of Tony’s mouth always quirked up when he used it, like he was completely aware of how the sound could quiet the kid within the first few syllables.

Then again, knowing Tony, he probably _ was _ aware.

“Peter, buddy,” Tony said, smoothing his fingertips over the teenager’s forehead. “You alive in there?”

Peter stirred slowly, nose scrunching up as he blindly turned his face in the direction of Tony’s voice. A subconscious response to the familiarity, Pepper assumed. He opened his eyes for all of two seconds, smiled when he saw Tony staring back at him, and let his eyelids slide shut again.

“Mm. Hi.” The kid yawned, stretching his legs out like a cat. “‘S you.”

“Mhm. It’s me.”

“Had a bad dream,” Peter muttered, readjusting himself against Tony’s side. “You were gone.”

Tony winced, and Pepper waited for him to correct the teenager, to tell him that it _ wasn’t _a dream. It’s what should would’ve done, at least.

“Well, I’m here now,” he said instead, pressing a soft kiss to the crown of Peter’s head. “So everything’s alright.”

“Mm.”

“D’you wanna go up to your bed?”

Peter shook his head, fingers curling possessively in Tony’s shirt.

“You sure?”

“Mm.”

“Bed’s more comfortable than the couch.”

“You’re here,” Peter mumbled, like that explained everything.

“I wasn’t actually planning on staying here all night, buddy.”

Peter tensed all at once, which was exactly the reaction Pepper had been expecting as soon as the words had left Tony’s mouth. Tony, on the other hand, seemed surprised by the response, although she couldn’t really fathom _ why _.

Then again, he hadn’t been the one who’d had to listen to Peter whisper _ is he dead? _ into the dark.

“No,” Peter choked out, much more awake but much too panicked to do anything more than gasp and cling. “No. No. You-You left ‘n then you didn’t come back and-”

“Okay, okay,” Tony soothed, an edge of desperation in the comfort. “Okay. I’m not leaving, alright? I’m gonna stay right here with you.” He flashed Pepper a look of apology, as if she hadn’t known that he wouldn’t be leaving this couch until morning long before he did. “Shh, buddy. You’re fine.”

Peter sank back into Tony’s arms, pacified. “Promise?”

“Uh-huh.”

They wasted a few minutes away in silence. Tony stared off at the far wall, gaze distant and tortured, hand moving possessively through Peter’s hair, the kind of monotonous rhythm that she knew he liked to get lost in.

“I’m telling you,” Pepper said, gently, checking that Peter’s breaths were still sleep-slowed and deep, “you really scared him.”

Guilt flashed over Tony’s face, and she knew that he’d be reliving tonight for the rest of his life: the way Peter had jolted from drowsy to terrified in an instant, the realization that he’d taken another chip out of his kid’s rapidly waning innocence.

“I didn’t realize,” he breathed.

“I know.”

She got up, grabbed a throw blanket from the basket they kept in the corner of the room. By the time she got back, Tony had stretched out across the couch, Peter resting half on top of him.

“I’m cancelling my meetings tomorrow,” she said, laying the blanket over them. “You’re not allowed to argue about it.”

“Okay.”

She cradled his face in her palm, trying to memorize how his stubble felt against her skin, how his eyes twinkled in the room’s muted light. “I’m going to call May, too. We’ll keep Peter and Morgan home from school. We’re just… We’re going to have a family day.”

To her surprise, he didn’t argue about the school comment. He just nodded against her hand, voice hushed like twilight. “Okay.”

“You are never, _ ever _allowed to do that to us again.”

_ Us _. That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Before, it had just been Pepper. And now, they had a family. If something went wrong, it wasn’t just her devastation anymore. It was a collective fear, a collective grief.

“I’ll do my best,” Tony whispered, and he sounded a little sad when he said it, like he wished he could give her more.

She wished that he could give her more, too, wished that he could give _ his children _more, but she knew that he couldn’t. Peter knew, too. She’d seen it in his eyes, when he’d asked her if Tony was already dead.

When you loved a hero, you buried them a thousand times before they actually died. She’d fill her nightmares with burying Tony, and he’d fill his with burying Peter, and the cycle would spiral and spiral until it collapsed in on itself. Until there was a coffin or there wasn’t.

But for now, Tony was alive. She wasn’t a widow, and Morgan wasn’t fatherless, and Peter wasn’t plagued with memories he’d never comprehend.

For tonight, they were fine.

When you loved a hero, _ tonight _had to be enough.


End file.
